The stupidest thing I have ever heard an American in Europe say.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

This wasn’t in Europe, but Asia. It wasn’t so much dumb as stupid+rude.

On the street in Madras, India, a vendor of fresh coconuts was using a machete to lop off one end of the coconuts. He stuck in a straw and you sipped out the sweet liquid. Then he sliced it in half and scooped out the tender translucent flesh for you to eat. It cost the equivalent of a few pennies. The Tamil coconut man was thin, dark-skinned, and quiet. His motions were rapid, economical, and efficient.

In line ahead of me was a bearded man with a backpack (I couldn’t tell if he was American or Canadian). He handed over a 10-rupee note and the coconut man gave him a couple coins in change. The backpack guy said, “I don’t want your change.” The vendor, not understanding, offered the change again. Backpack shouted vilely, “I told you I don’t want your change! Keep it!” Then repeated it. I wanted to punch the asshole’s teeth down his vile throat and only remembered Gandhi and nonviolence just in time.

As for Europe, I remember standing on a balcony in Sorrento, Italy, looking out over a supernaturally glorious sunset over the Mediterranean. The light, the colors, the sea, the clouds were just ecstatic. The middleaged American lady next to me said, “Gosh, it looks just like a painting, doesn’t it?” A painting?!?!?!

Dumb, now, dumb is a universal language. I was standing in line in a post office in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Ahead of me, my Polish friend Bogdan Kopanski was mailing a large manila envelope clearly addressed to the “Embassy of Poland / Kuala Lumpur.” The Malay postal clerk charged him an exorbitant amount of postage. Enough postage to mail the envelope first class all the way to Warsaw, in fact. Bogdan rightfully upbraided the guy for not even reading the damn address all the way through.

42

Scene: Konopiste, Archduke Ferdinand’s Hunting Lodge, Czech Republic.

Tourist couple: “What do you call that?”
Czech tour guide: “It’s a battle-axe.”
Tourist couple: “And what is that?”
Czech tour guide: “As you can see from the shape, it’s armor for a horse.”
Tourist couple: “And what is that spear-thing?”
Czech tour guide: “I don’t know if there is an English word for it, but in Czech we call it ____.”
Loud aside, tourist husband to tourist wife “I thought they said the guides speak English here.”
Magdalene sinks into hole that has suddenly opened in the ground to swallow her embarrassment.

Scene: European Geopolitics Class, Prague, Czech Republic.

Professor Hnizdo: “The vote to join the European Union was very close in some countries. You had cases where different ethno-linguistic votes voted completely differently. For example, in Switzerland, the German-speaking population voted one way, the French-speaking population voted the other way, and the Italian speaking people voted this way.”
Carolyn, my dumbass classmate: “How did the Swiss-speaking people vote?”
Giant hole opens in classroom floor to swallow Magdalene.

Scene: Silver Mines, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic.

Professor Roubalova, my Czech Language teacher: “I am worried about Carolyn. She cannot even find her place in the book. How will she find her way through the mines?”

Scene: Toy Museum, Prague, Czech Republic. Dollhouse room.

Elderly British Couple: “I hear the Queen had a lovely dollhouse.”
My kick-ass roommate Madhavi: “Oh, really?”
Elderly British Couple: “Yes, much grander than this one.”
Madhavi: “Have you seen it?”
E.B.C.: “No, actually, we haven’t.”
Madhavi: “Well, how do you know it’s nicer? It could be a tiny, crappy little dollhouse.”
E.B.C.: “Oh, we doubt that very much. Everything is grander in England.”
Madhavi: “Really. Do you think she still plays with it? Is it her very favorite toy?”
*E.B.C. stares at Madhavi wide-eyed. Magdalene collapses in helpless laughter behind dollhouse. Exeunt. *

All I would add to haj’s and matt_mcl’s instructions for travelers is this:

Some countries are not as well off as the U.S. The dollar is strong there. Things are comparatively cheap. In some cases, amazingly cheap. Pray do not go on and on and on and on (and on) about the cheapness of the living in front of the locals as you spend their monthly salary on dinner or trinkets. It doesn’t endear you.

43

Darqangelle, there are genuine Canadians who apparently hold the same presumption. Trust me on this one.

Anyway, just to balance things out a bit, let me talk about the stupid European tourists I had to deal with when I worked at Tower Records in Greenwich Village. For example, the ones who bitched at us because they had to pay sales tax. No kidding, I actually encountered a few who not only thought they shouldn’t have to pay tax because they’re foreigners - which itself would be moderately understandable, since their countries generally give VAT refunds to tourists - but who actually attempted to *argue * the point with us (no, of course we don’t actually know the law better than you, Mr Straight-Off-The-Boat, and if we do we’re not applying it because - what - the shop makes money off a government tax or something???) and one charming pair even told the supervisor I had to call that the least she could do was violate the law for them since it wasn’t a fair law anyway.

Yes, it does go to show you, idiocy knows no nationality.

44

[hijack]
But let’s say I was well off and I traveled to one such country where the dollar was strong. Would it be good for international relations if I walked into a bar or two and bought a round of beer for everybody? I suppose it’ll depend on local customs and how much charm I put into it, but generally speaking?
[/hijack]

45

Passerby: in Amsterdam, you’ll be welcomed with open arms.

Not that we’re a particularly poor country or anything. But we’re never offended by a free beer. :smiley:

46

As a mail sorter in Sydney, I’m amazed at the number of Americans sending postcards home who spell it “S**i*dney”. Now, you might be excused for spelling the name of a city incorrectly, but the name of a city you’ve spent thousands of dollars travelling to? Weird. I don’t go anywhere overseas without at the very least spending an hour or so on the internet checking it out.

And the two dumbest things I’ve heard a fellow Australian say (both from the same person) occured as we were watching the weather report on TV:

  • “What do those little numbers next to the cities mean?”

  • “What season is it in New Zealand now?”
    Stupidity knows no borders.

47

Coldfire: Not Amsterdam! I lived there for six months. I remember getting there… :smiley:

Great beer, great bars, great people.

48

Terribly sorry, it has been awhile since this happened to me, and it didn’t make a really deep impression on me at the time. I believe he actually said Junkie or drug addict. My mistake, I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on the drug dealers of Amsterdam.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

49

A case could be made for saying that the German speakers are the Swiss speaking people. It is a weak case, I know, and it doesn’t explain her stupidity, but Swiss-German is quite distinct from German-German (or so I’ve been told, I don’t speak either. I have heard both spoken and I can say that they do seem to sound different). Anyway, if you didn’t know anything about the country it would be a natural mistake to make even if it is ignorant.

50

There is only one language that’s exclusively Swiss: Romantsch. You could make a stronger case for that being the “Swiss language”, if any there be, except that only a tiny fraction of the population can speak it, and it’s limited to a few remote valleys in the canton of Graubünden. It most closely resembles (to my ear) rustic Northern Italian dialects, but it’s written in a German-influenced orthography.

51

A Brit in the US turned to me and, with childlike delight in his eyes, said “Wow, they have Heinz Tomato Ketchup here!”

:rolleyes:

52

Not so much stupid as sweet this one, but here it is anyway.

I was travelling in a hotel minibus in Seattle, sitting next to an elderly couple from, IIRC, Texas.

They were grumbling to eachother about the price of fuel - it was about $1 a gallon at the time.

I leaned over and, to give them something to think about, pointed out that in the UK it costs more like $5 a gallon.

A little silence. The elderly woman asks me “and people still drive in England? Do they drive to work?”

I confirm that this is the case. There is a little more silence.

Then the old guy turns to his wife. “Of course in England everybody drives Minis…”

pan

53

…overheard in an outdoor cafe in the South of France…

American tourist, to wife “What are we gonna do with all of this CHANGE?”

Seems that he just didn’t grasp the fact that coin currency is acceptable as a form of payment. If it wasn’t PAPER currency, then it couldn’t have much value.

Yeesh.

54

Grizz: Maybe they meant when they get home. Currency exchange places will not accept coins.

55

To tourist guide at Runnymeade:

“Excuse me Sir, when was the Magna Carta signed”

“1215, Madam”

“See Hank, I said we shoulda come this mornin’”

56

Got a day or two?

I live in Prague. Something like 15,000 Americans live here and, unfortunately, not one compares to my own flesh and blood while on tour through Europe…

#1 “Boy, tha shore iz different.”
#2 “Why do people ride the trams here? Back home, I got me 3 cars!”
#3 “Hmmm…I don’t know about thatttt…Can’t you haggle or something for the bill here?” (Said at a restaurant)

Thank you Uncle Dick, Err, I mean Richard…

But I do love the pantomime that some Jewish lady performed at the castle one day:

“How doooo IIIII WWWWWAAAAALLLLKKKK TTTOOO TTTHHHHEEEE BBBRRIIIIDDDGGGE?”

The local being interogated: “???!?”

“WWWWWAAALLLLKKKKK!!!”

(Insert picture of 40-ish Jewish mother with Gucci sunglasses and a permed-doo duck-stepping to show the verb ‘to walk’)

“WWWWWaaaalllllkkkkkinnnngggg…”

At this point I, err, stepped in, and gave her directions down the hill.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like pick-pocketing the tourists myself. You’ve been warned dozens of times about the thiefs here, yet you stick your $250 camera in your loose jacket pocket and get on a metro? AAAgggghhhh!!! Idiots!

-Tcat

57

I saw a biography show on Heinz recently. Apparently he was such a fantastic salesman and so successful at marketing Heinz products in the UK, that the people here actually thought (and some still do) that his brand originated here.

58

In a huge book chain here in Los Angeles I heard a girl explosively blurt to her French boyfriend, “The only book you’ve ever read in your entire life was Harry Potter?! In FRENCH!?!”

“…it was very good! We should go eat. You are not going to spend money on these things are you? They are very expensive.”

That thirty year-old French guy’s knowledge of the literary world came solely from a translated copy of Harry Potter. I’m still shaking my head over that one.

59

Tom, sometime you should sit upstairs at Cafe Milena (Across from the clock on Staromestke Namesti) and watch the pickpockets at work - everyone’s eyes are fixed on the clock, their cameras (and therefore elbows) are in the air, and they are paying attention to nothing that goes on around them. It’s pickpocket heaven.

60

I think you’re right, I have the feeling that a majority of people think Heinz is British. I mean how many Brits really know the nationality associated with your local friendly neighbourhood Spar shop? Not many I’d guess.